Being Priced Out Of Florida

[YorkshireT]

May half term is just a week so doesn’t tend to shoot up in price like summer as you have to take kids out of school for a week- not an option with older kids. Also flying out one London airport and back is bound to be much cheaper. But well done on the prices LLamb, excellent deal!
I agree, MAN is much more expensive and has been for ages, due to lack of competition even before TC went under.
Before TC went under I’d struggle to get Manchester flights out and back in summer or Xmas for under £900 each. That’s including with TC.
Of course deals to be had outside school holidays.
For us though getting down to London is a pain in the backside, unless it’s massively cheaper.
Air Canada had some decent indirect flights on. I’m flying to LA next summer, and back from Orlando 3 weeks later, and I got that for about £750 from MAN going out late July.

[macadoo]

Originally Posted by novocastrian

^ depends on time of year

August 4 adults 325 each isnt realistic 99.999% of the time

imo like

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Each time has been in school summer holidays. We have only been able to go in school holidays.

[LLamb]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

May half term is just a week so doesn’t tend to shoot up in price like summer as you have to take kids out of school for a week- not an option with older kids. Also flying out one London airport and back is bound to be much cheaper. But well done on the prices LLamb, excellent deal!
I agree, MAN is much more expensive and has been for ages, due to lack of competition even before TC went under.
Before TC went under I’d struggle to get Manchester flights out and back in summer or Xmas for under £900 each. That’s including with TC.
Of course deals to be had outside school holidays.
For us though getting down to London is a pain in the backside, unless it’s massively cheaper.
Air Canada had some decent indirect flights on. I’m flying to LA next summer, and back from Orlando 3 weeks later, and I got that for about £750 from MAN going out late July.

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Thankfully we get two weeks off school in May. Definitely cheapest of the school holidays. I debated booking those flights as it was not long after release, rather glad I did now.

[Buzz n' Piglet]

Looks like virgin have taken a lot of Thomas Cook longhaul slots from Manchester. So I wouldnt expect them to get any cheaper with less competition.

[welshmum]

We have booked for next year but not doing disney - disney prices for next year are insane and to be honest, my children have enjoyed Universal much more than Disney this year because they are a bit older. It doesnt help that the Disney parks have been completely rammed since we have got here and we have literally been doing our FP and leaving. Some disney days we have cancelled completely and had pool days or returned to Universal.

We are going next September (2A, 3C) with Virgin Holidays staying at Universal Endless Summer and it is costing us £2900 for 2 weeks.

We are currently in Florida and have upgraded our Universal tickets to annual passes so dont have to worry about ticket costs (but may look into DC with SW and BG).

Yes we will need extra money for food and drinks, but nowhere near the almost £6000 disney wanted for staying onsite with tickets and dining (not including flights).

As much as I love Disney, I think as a family, we are done with it for a while.

[YorkshireT]

Originally Posted by LLamb

Thankfully we get two weeks off school in May. Definitely cheapest of the school holidays. I debated booking those flights as it was not long after release, rather glad I did now.

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That is lucky, wish we did. Perfect time to go.

[Bozza]

Originally Posted by macadoo

We fly indirect which brings the cost down a lot. The last few years for 4 adults we’ve paid no more than £1300 which makes Florida much more affordable.

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It depends on how you holiday.

We had cheepie indirect flights this year, probably something like £1300 for the four of us, but it's neither here nor there in the big scheme of things.

I genuinely have no idea how much the holiday cost us in total, but as a ball park I'd guess at c£15k. As such, the flight cost was pretty insignificant.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by Pino_Spetzberg

Possibly price up Florida without parks ?
We went to DomRep in '90s, not our choice, family wedding.
If you want to go to Florida probably best to go to Florida if you can.

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We do Florida without parks - well this year we did 1 day at Busch and got rained off so have a free 1 day rain pass each from Busch. We will use these this year, staying on Gulf Coast with family. We can't afford flights and 14 days passes for everyone with the parking on top of that. We have the beach, 2 villas with pools and hot tubs, this is what we prefer rather than queuing for 90 mins for a 3 minute ride in the heat.

[Moorlandman]

I wouldn’t go to Florida/Orlando in the summer months unless I was going to visit the parks. Why? Because between June and September there is no guarantee of sun and it will probably rain at some point most days. So any outdoors plans are usually hard to plan - even beach days can be a nightmare.

Hence, this year we went to Cyprus. We missed the parks but the guaranteed sun and heat was lovely - we spent loads of time snorkelling in the sea with no worries about thunder storms😀

[Irishlass]

I'm intrigued as to why people always choose All inclusive if they don't do disney?
We only ever go self catering when on holiday. We've( as in the family) been travelling for over 40 years now, and i think in all those various holidays, possibly only stayed in a hotel about 9 or 10 times. Never once has it been all inclusive.
I and a few family members done our once In a lifetime trip to florida in 2016. Yes we would love to go back, infact myself, my niece and cousin have been looking to go back in 2021, but the prices are almost double what we paid in 2016, and that was a struggle back then, so unless we win the lotto, it's looking very unlikely that we will ever be back.
However we will still have our annual family holiday in July and we have never spent more than £800 pp for 2 weeks self catering, then even eating out most nights we still have change. For our holiday plus eating out at night plus sometimes lunch, it costs about £1060 each.
If we go to the likes of salou then you've got the theme park there, or if we go to Lanzarote you've the water parks etc.
Some people say then go without you're summer holiday to do Florida, that's not an option for me. I work in a school and those 7 weeks off are for me to go to do all the things I cant do during the term. 2 of those weeks are to switch off completely, not worry about a thing and have very much needed me time.
And I cant see why I should give up 4 years worth of summer holidays just for one holiday to florida.
Reading some posts on this forum sometimes makes my eyes water at the prices that are paid for a 2/3 week holiday for a family. Sometimes I'm going, god that's a deposit on a house for me.

But when I read posts about people not doing florida this year, it's near enough always an AI option somewhere and I'm always intrigued as to why AI?
For me AI restricts you to the hotel, as for the money paid for it, then I'd be ensuring I'm getting my money's worth out of it, and a lot of AI hotels are further away from the main areas so its added expense to get to others places for days out or even to go to the beach or shops.